Here is the painting in question, it makes appearances in many scenes but this is first one it appears in. In such a deep movie where context and subtext are rife everywhere and nothing is there "just cause", I was wondering who is in this painting hanging on the wall. At first glance and taken in with all the other context of the movie I thought it was the founder of the Bavarian Illuminati, Adam Weishaupt, but it doesnt seem like it yet for most people who just glance over it, that may be what they pick up. I tried looking online and I could not find it either so I was hoping maybe someone in here who is a bit more historically inclined than I might have the answer.
It's definitely not Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830). I'm not familiar with the portrait off-hand, and I can't zoom in enough to get a clear look at identifiers (the medal and the pink sash). But the wig is a full-bottomed wig, which were in fashion from the second half of the 17th century until about 1730. I'd hazard this is from the end of that period, since it's not quite as voluminous as the "horrid bushes of vanity" of the Louis XIV and Stuart courts.
For more on wigs, see: Corson, Richard (1965). Fashion in hair: the first five thousand years.
edit: Just a passing thought, but it might be a philosopher/scientist who dealt with epistemological questions since the movie is concerned with the transference of identity. (It's not Locke or Leibniz or Berkeley however.)
My first thought was perhaps a hypnotist of some kind, but that didn't prove to be fruitful, since hypnotism as we know it dates from the late 18th century, which doesn't match the wig. The modern founder of physiognomy, a kind of racialized human taxonomy, Johann Kaspar Lavater, similarly dates from too late for the wig.
I also thought about the surname "Armitage," which is the name of the film's central family, but nothing came up there.
It's not Voltaire.
Others I checked and don't think it is: Pascal, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Diderot, Hume...
Damn. I hope we can figure it out!
